intellectual property

Contr'un

Notes on “the disposition of intellectual products”

July 24, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
I’m always surprised by the lasting (and often false) impression that this bit of off-the-cuff theorizing has left in certain circles. But I’m also generally pleasantly surprised, when I am reminded of its existence that, despite being the product of a very different place in my theoretical development than I occupy at present, it’s fairly solid stuff. It was very specifically part of a series of attempts to determine just how far, and in what directions, fairly conventional property theory would stretch when applied in anarchistic contexts. So it has to be read as a series of speculations, aimed at […]
Contr'un

Proudhon and intellectual property

January 28, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
Apparently I missed a post on the C4SIF site last March, claiming that Proudhon was an advocate of intellectual property. Now, as I am a notorious softy on that question (or self-serving reactionary, depending on who you ask), I’m less inclined to “pistols at dawn” than some might be, but it doesn’t sound much like the Proudhon I know. You can check the comments for some discussion with Stephan Kinsella about the question, which is rendered more difficult because the text at issue is from the half-translated and notoriously difficult System of Economic Contradictions.
Contr'un

Proudhon on Property (1846) – Part 4

May 20, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE SYSTEM OF ECONOMIC CONTRADICTIONS CHAPTER XI EIGHTH EPOCH.—PROPERTY [continued from Part 3]   Of all the forms of property, the most detestable is that which has talent for a pretext. Prove to an artist, by the comparison of times and men, that the inequality of works of art, in the different centuries, above all stems from the oscillating movements of society, from the changing of beliefs and of the state of minds; that whatever a society is worth, so much is the worth of the artist; that between the artist and his contemporaries there exists a community of needs […]